


never wield such power

by literallynoonecares



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, World Between Worlds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:00:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28201272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literallynoonecares/pseuds/literallynoonecares
Summary: six short vignettes about rey and kylo before and after exegol -- and the lengths you’d go if you thought the one you loved was still alive.Inspired by the song Marjorie from Taylor Swift’s Evermore
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 14
Kudos: 37
Collections: Reylo Evermore Flash Fic





	never wield such power

**Author's Note:**

> who doesn't luv to be emotionally hurt by a taylor swift song

i.  
**And if I didn’t know better**  
**I’d think you were listening to me now**  
**If I didn’t know better**  
**I’d think you were still around**

It’s been weeks since Exegol, filled with unending questions and explanations and tears Rey never expected. She tells Ben’s story leaving out crucial parts. She can’t bring herself to admit the feelings she had.

Filled with such loss she can’t bear to describe it to her friends, she withdraws. 

Rey spends her hours making herself busy. She figures if she doesn’t have time to stop moving she won’t have time to think about her grandfather, or Exegol, or Ben. 

She’s lying to herself, of course.

Rey thinks of him all the time. As she cleans out the Falcon and finds remnants of his childhood. As she stares at the lightsaber she refuses to wield. 

Everything turns numb after a while. 

During a trip to Coruscant Rey stares into hyperspace for so long Poe shakes her out of it, concerned she’ll get sick. 

She wishes he would let her. It might make her feel something other than numb. But she obeys and looks away. 

She’s practically catatonic when she makes her way to her bunk. She cries and yells, a woman undone. She’s angry. She hasn’t found it in herself to forgive Ben for leaving her -- for sacrificing his life for hers. It wasn’t fair. She curses his name. 

And there’s a part of her that’s certain he can hear her. Through the Force. Through the galaxy. Ben’s Force signature feels so far away and disconnected from her, but _there_ all the same. She wonders at times if she made it up in her mind to comfort herself. A sick and twisted game she plays with herself. 

She imagines him listening to her scream, cry, and wail about how hurt and angry she is with him. She imagines the corners of his lips turning upward, unable to take her seriously because he finds her so damn endearing when she’s furious. So sincere.

She forces herself to sleep and dreams of his smile and his touch. 

**ii.**  
**Never be so politе**  
**You forget your power**

_“Rey, you have to talk to me sometime. You can’t pretend we’re connected,” Ben insists._

_“I don’t have to talk to you. You made your choices and I made mine.”_

_“Choices can be changed, Rey.”_

_“Are you going to defect to the Resistance, then?” Rey snarks._

_His self-preservation kicks in. He can’t respond to that in earnest._

_“You fixed the lightsaber,” he comments._

_“I did.”_

_“You did well,” he says._

_“I haven’t used it,” she replies._

_“Do you think we can fight through the bond?”_

_“We can do everything else,” her words hang heavy in the balance of the Force._

_He walks to his shelf and takes out his lightsaber._

_“Then let’s try it,” he ignites the crossguard saber and steps into position._

_She does the same._

_He’s timid at first with his strikes. None of the power from Starkiller or even the Supremacy._

_“You’re holding back,” Rey complains._

_“I do not wish to *actually* hurt you, cyar’ika. As much as you don’t want to believe that.”_

_“You’ve already hurt me, Ben. What’s the difference now?” she bites back._

_“As you wish,” he grits through closed teeth._

_A flash of disjointed moments later, Rey realizes just how easy he was going on her as he moves onto offensive forms, slashing toward her violently._

_She steps up her game._

_She barely holds her own._

_“You can yield,” he goads. A self-satisfactory smirk paints his face._

_Instead she tries to connect deeper in his mind but he pushes back. His saber grazes her leg and she yelps in pain. She drops her saber and collapses. He extinguishes his saber and rushes toward her._

_“Don’t,” she growls._

_“Let me see it,” he begs. His eyes are worried and kind. “I’m sorry, cyar’ika I didn’t mean to--“_

_She knows he’s sincere._

_“Why do you keep calling me that?”_

_“So you know I care.”_

_She removes her hand from her leg and Ben examines the wound._

_“May I?” Ben asks. There’s a softness in her voice that makes Rey eagerly nod._

_He places his hand over her wound and centers himself in the Force. He heals her._

_Rey feels his Force signature intertwined with hers even more deeply._

_“Thank you.”_

_“You’re welcome,” he says as he relaxes next to her, heavily breathing._

_“One day I’ll figure out to heal and return the favor,” she says reaching for his face, tracing the scar she made years ago._

_He wraps his hand over hers._

_“I’d rather be reminded of you.”_

_The bond stretches taut and disconnects them before she can respond._

**iii.**

**I should’ve asked you questions**  
**I should’ve asked you how to be**

Rey convinces Finn, Poe, and Rose she’s well enough for solo trip. She leaves to finds a kyber crystal that calls to her. 

She wishes Ben was around to help her.

She’s never found a crystal. 

She’s only ever _repaired_ a lightsaber. That’s what she was good at, after all. Fixing and scavenging. She was out of her element here. 

Ben would know what to do. 

She should have asked him questions when she had a chance. She shouldn’t have wasted time after Crait blocking him out. 

She shakes it off. 

A crystal calls to her like a siren song in the Force. She’s skeptical at first, because everything in her life has screamed don’t trust it. But she does. She thinks Ben would. 

It shines a bright yellow. 

Another question she’d leave unanswered. _What does a yellow kyber crystal mean?_

She makes her way back to Tatooine and picks up enough material to construct a saberstaff. 

She prepares water and food for herself. She chokes down a few ration packs before she begins. She’s read it can take days in a meditative state to complete the lightsaber, and she doesn’t want to hurt herself.

She’d feel better if Ben were there to guide her, to encourage her, to support her, to help her understand the questions that pop up in her mind. But there’s nothing that can change that so she soldiers on. 

By the end of it, she’s left with a saberstaff shining bright with her yellow crystal.

Ben might not have been there to answer her questions, but she’s certain he’d be proud of her if he saw. And in her heart she holds to the ephemeral thought -- _maybe he did._

**iv.**  
**Never wield such power**  
**You forget to be polite**

_The bond connects them at the worst possible times. It’s always inconvenient and always puts too much strain on each of them._

_A bitterness develops._

_But there’s another side of it, more complex._

_Rey and Ben both believe they’re the only ones who understand each other._

_And maybe they are._

_Ben comforts Rey when she’s too hard on herself and struggles with training. Rey comforts Ben when the mantle of power becomes too much to bear._

_There’s an unspoken agreement between the two not to mention the other coming to the other side._

_And one day when Ben sobs in Rey’s arms she breaks it. She takes the plunge._

_“Come to the Resistance, Ben. Leave this. Your mother would love to see you,” she says softly._

_He stiffens against her. He tears away and wipes his face._

_“You know I can’t leave. And it’s low to mention my mother. You have *no idea* what she wants. She doesn’t want to see me, Rey. I’m dead to her.”_

_“That’s not true, Ben.”_

_“Stop calling me that. You’re in love with a ghost,” he spits out._

_Rey’s stunned._

_Silence. Tension through the bond._

_“I’m sorry. I didn’t...”_

_“I understand, Ben,” she says stoically._

_“Rey--“_

_“No, I understand. I regret saying it.”_

_“You don’t understand. You don’t understand me,” he says._

_“Weren’t you the one to tell me you knew me even though no one else did?” Rey bites back._

_“It’s different.”_

_“Ah,” she replies. She purses her lips._

_“I can’t defect to the Resistance, Rey. They’d kill me.”_

_“And the First Order wants me dead. We’ve all made our choices, Ben. I understand what I mean to you.”_

_“Rey--“_

_“Please, Ben. I can’t right now.”_

_“We don’t have to talk anymore. I should have respected your wishes in the first place. I’m sorry,” he sounds forlorn._

_The bond dissipates in an instant._

_It’s weeks later until they connect again. Late at night, both in their beds on opposite sides of the galaxy. A wordless apology floats through the bond. Tears wiped away from both cheeks. Rey lies close to him and he snakes his hand around her waist._

_She burrows into him. Her back rubs against him and she lets out a soft whimper. She presses against him further desperate to be so close to him. After so many years of feeling_ alone _, she wanted to feel cared for._

_And she’d lie to the Resistance, to herself, to everyone -- but she’d never felt so cared for than when she was in Ben Solo’s arms._

_She wasn’t sure what to do with that realization._

**v.**  
**What died didn’t stay dead**  
**What died didn’t stay dead**  
**You’re alive, you’re alive in my head**

When she closes her eyes, she’s able to envision Ben on Tatooine with her. She knows he would *hate* it, but she didn’t know where else to go. 

She notices him in the distance at first. Sand swirls around him. He stands firm. Stoic. Strong. 

And then he moves. And the closer the get, the less real he feels. So she tries to keep her vision of him at a distance. But she can’t help but bring him closer to her at night. 

Rey can make herself sense his Force signature. She reminds herself how to felt to have him wrap his arms around her. 

She falls asleep every night whispering to a non-existent person in her bed. She tells him about her day. She tells him about her adventures and her friends. 

He doesn’t respond, but she can feel a warm presence around her if she thinks hard enough.

For fleeting moments, she’s able to convince herself Ben Solo is alive. 

  
**vi.**

**And if I didn’t know better**  
**I’d think you were talking to me now**  
**If I didn’t know better**  
**I’d think you were still around**

They’re a few bottles into the Corellian Whiskey stash when it happens for the first time. 

She hears Ben say her name. 

She makes her excuses to the group and retires to her bunk and cries herself to sleep. 

She vows to never drink again. 

Later, in the marketplace. Again. 

_Come find me, cyar’ika._

She flinches.

She confides in Lando after the fifth time, unable to ignore the feelings anymore. He helps her decode messages from the Jedi texts. He encourages her to parse through her emotions. 

He co-pilots with her as Rey’s certain she has to go to the World Between Worlds. 

He waits in the ship as she ventures out onto a deserted planet. 

She shivers as she _senses_ Ben so much clearer than ever before. 

And a voice, so distinct and his:

_”I’m here.”_

It takes her a frustratingly long time to figure out where the portal is. It’s an even longer time before she figures out how to open it. She’s angry with herself and so desperate to find Ben she claws at the wall, tears streaming down her face. She realizes the mural is almost alive and she collects herself. 

Rey listens to the Force and manipulates the mural on the wall. It opens the portal for her. She steps forward and reaches for a hand. 

_She’s done this before. In the hut on Ahch-To. A peace treaty between enemies. A chance for a new beginning. The brush of fingertips that convinced her of humanity._

She extends her hand more assuredly this time. She feels familiar fingertips and an electricity rushes through her body. She pulls him through the portal and their bond springs back to life. 

**Author's Note:**

> comments + kudos very appreciated!!
> 
> follow me on twitter  
> and check out some of my other works you might be interested in:  
> the cost of business — a blackmail dub con fic
> 
> I heard the bells — for the reylo hallmark movie collection
> 
> want you next to me — a smutty one shot (best friend’s sister/roommates)
> 
> control (to get what I want) — a CNC one shot
> 
> love me at the ungodly hour — an edging/orgasm delay fic


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